This week, BP was given an award for being a good corporate citizen.\u00a0 By Forbes Magazine.\u00a0 (Stop.\u00a0 Read those first two sentences again. OK, on we go.)<\/p>\n
Forbes, that bastion of tree-hugging liberalism, has ranked the 100 largest companies based on their commitment to social and environmental goals. \u00a0They took a hard and presumably unbiased look at the way these corporations are run, how their officers are rewarded, and how their business impacts the planet.\u00a0 \u00a0After much research, can you guess who they determined to be \u201cthe good guys\u201d?\u00a0 Four petroleum companies.\u00a0 Two auto-makers that rely somewhat on petroleum.\u00a0 Three banks that invest heavily in unregulated, developing markets. \u00a0Oh, and one cell phone company.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a closer look at BP, the newly-christened \u201cMOST ACCOUNTABLE COMPANY IN THE WORLD.\u201d\u00a0 In 2000, after acquiring ARCO and AMOCO, BP changed its name from \u201cBritish Petroleum\u201d to \u201cBeyond Petroleum.\u201d\u00a0 It adopted a pretty flower as its icon and gave all its service stations a fresh coat of paint. \u00a0In 2007, BP announced that they would spend $8Billion in R&D for solar and other alternative forms of energy. \u00a0BP\u2019s new CEO Tony Hayward took over in May 2007 amid claims of dedication to alternative energy and social responsibility.<\/p>\n
BP is also the primary shareholder of a new 1000-mile pipeline through Russia and Turkey, which has been cited for 173 environmental and social violations in the design stage alone.\u00a0 BP was recently found guilty of terrorizing Columbian farmers to protect a pipeline there. \u00a0BP is under investigation by the US Justice Department for manipulating propane prices. \u00a0In July, the state of Indiana and the EPA awarded BP numerous exemptions from the Clean Water Act, which will allow BP to pollute Lake Michigan; the Chicago Sun-Times responded in August with a call for a BP boycott. \u00a0And as late as 2006, BP was named one of the 10 worst companies in the world by Multinational Monitor.<\/p>\n
So how\u2019d they get that award? \u00a0Perhaps it has something to do with that massive media buy that they have made at Forbes Magazine.\u00a0 Or perhaps a lot of powerful people are staring, glassy-eyed, at a pretty little flower and repeating slowly, \u201cBP is a good company, BP is a good company, BP is a\u201d\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, BP was given an award for being a good corporate citizen.\u00a0 By Forbes Magazine.\u00a0 (Stop.\u00a0 Read those first two sentences again. OK, on we go.) Forbes, that bastion of tree-hugging liberalism, has ranked the 100 largest companies based on their commitment to social and environmental goals. \u00a0They took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[169,295,446],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","tag-bp","tag-corporate-citizen","tag-forbes-magazine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}